Canada reaches space with Lego

Two students from Toronto have made a bit leap into the final frontier for Lego-kind, sending a Canadian-flag wielding Lego man into space with just a helium balloon and four cameras to record the whole event. Seventeen-year-olds Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad simply attached a helium balloon to four cameras and a Lego strip connected to a Lego man and his cool tiny Canada flag and let them fly. Once the whole rig descended back to Earth, the collection was made and the videos were viewed. When the videos were loaded and the photos they took were reviewed, the teens started screaming.

This feat has brought fourth the attention of Lego themselves, who sent a congratulatory letter to the boys complimenting their ingenuity and thanking them for using Lego to do the deed. “We are always amazed by the creative ways in which Lego fans use our products, and humbled by how many unsuspecting places we appear, like attached to a helium balloon in … space,” said Lego’s brand relations director Michael McNally. At the moment just one video has been uploaded from the set of media the boys have collected, seen here:

The whole assembly consisted of a rip-stop nylon parachute that the boys tested by lobbing off their 40-story condominium unit, an $85 weather balloon, and $160 in helium from a party store. In addition there was a wide-angle video camera, a cell-phone with GPS (for locating the setup after it landed), and several more point-and-shoot cameras, all inside a styrofoam box which also held out the Lego man. The entire craft traveled to around 80,000 feed, that three times the average cruising altitude of a commercial aircraft, and fell to the earth payload intact.

We look forward to the rest of the photos and video from these two awesome scientists!